In their defense, they may have flubbed and meant to type "up".

Beyond that, your assessment is precisely what I've aimed to address. I do have a few questions for everybody:

1. The crit mechanics of the Flare Gun: typically found to be annoying? From what I'm reading, buffing direct combat and keeping flarepunching goes against the stated "make Pyro less annoying"-goal.
   
2. Beyond airblasting, what other gimmicks of the class are just unsatisfying to go against?

Just got back from work, and I see all this going on. Wow, y'all are passionate about this, eh. Thanks for showing up, Cole, by the way.

Uh, I was able to get the server running again; so if you've got some friends and some time, try it out:
steam://connect/74.91.116.128:27015

Gonna have to eat my words on this one. Honestly, I was more paying attention to the footcam than anything. I concede that point. ^^;

The people I've spoken with have had complaints about Pyro's ability to effectively follow through in the tight window they have (the metric I was given is ~0.8s). At the same time, I've been told that a buff to flames would be terrible for new players that believe them to be overpowered? There has been a "Pyro damage is fine"-camp, as well, and the mechanics outlined are my best reconciliation between those three parties that I could find. The quadratic equation used keeps a "ring" of about-normal damage that I have observed good Pyros tend to stay in, while the decrease beyond it is easier for new players to fight against. Ideally, the three general groups ("Pyro is weak", "Pyro is fine", and "I am a potato") each have their own accommodations. I would test this to make sure, but....

As for airblasts, hitting someone that's charging directly at you will cause them to hop slightly while still charging at you. Airblasting an aware opponent is generally a terrible idea. Fortunately, the Neon Annihilator can do what airblasts used to do, but it's somewhat trickier to use.

Grodbrort weapons have consistently been a pain to modify. You've gotta admit that it creates situations where you'd equip it over the Powerjack or Axtinguisher, though.

And that's why the falloff was added, 4812622.

When an enemy is actively trying to stay outside of your flames, the result is most likely going to be that they're outside of your kill-range, only getting tickled; effectively neutering W+M1 play. The extra damage only becomes a factor when you get the drop on your target.

I really wish SourceMod wasn't broken right now. :(

With the Neon Annihilator change, I've given serious thought to that idea. The airblast one.

I feel you. The change I made to the Manmelter is meant to cover mid-range combat; being a weaker, no-splash Rocket Launcher.

From what I've been told, the problem is/was that Pyro was too braindead at lower levels of skill while being unrewarding as one becomes better. If the change causes more problems than it solves, I'm open to new ideas. Particle-manipulation is something I've experimented with in the past, but found it being more trouble than it's worth. As I improved as a developer, it may be more manageable.

i can not not

10 at 50%
11 at 75%

Testing outside of Walkway has been less dominating. Charging a group of players carelessly leads to 1-2 kills tops. 1v1 is more affected by the falloff than the ramp-up, in my experience. In the later bit of Heavy-demonstration, the weakness of the change is more apparent.

ikr

Seems bad on paper, but my own testing shows its less than absolutely devastating. I managed to get some demonstration footage a while back, before the Heavy-nerf and the current ramp value (it's 11 instead of 10, now): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvyUhhRu3fo

A while back I made a thread on what the community would like to see happen to the Pyro, and the feedback I received was very enlightening. First and foremost, I want to thank you all that posted previously for the engaging discussion that was had. :)

That said, and with a few months of... uh, "deep reflection and deliberate work", a report back seems in order. There was going to be a video attached to this, but SourceMod doesn't work right now. Text and theory will have to do for now. Here's the gist, with a full changelist at the bottom of the post:

• Flamethrowers are made more distinct in direct combat.
  
• Airblasts preserve enemy momentum, and are weaker overall.
  
• Super-situational weapons were given new mechanics.

These changes were meant to reconcile both the "Pyro is unfun to play as"-people and the "Pyro is obnoxious to play against"-folk. Direct combat is made more reliable, since they're fashioned more after the Scattergun than before. Stock and the Phlogistinator have actual ramp-up at point-blank range, and the Degreaser and Backburner's only downsides are that they don't. All the flamethrowers have more falloff, making each primary's unique factor all the more important; with stock's (hopefully) being the most general of all. (Falloff happens from default damage, not the ramp-up.) Pyro's made both more rewarding and more engaging at the same time... I think. Maybe. I could be wrong.

That's just half the story, though. Pyros are happy, but what about everybody else? Having to deal with airblasting and truly deadly DPS is a terrible thought, so I took away one of those problems. I reverted the damage changes entirely. Airblasts aren't the beast we all know and... know, anymore. They preserve enemy velocity, and aren't as strong. Projectiles still reflect fine, but you can't stall players without some serious effort anymore. You can still throw people out of position, but you have to work with their momentum; not against it. Wax on, wax off, woosah, et cetera. There ought to be more thought involved in airblasts, although definitely less necessary with the buff to direct combat.

Since stalling ubers is still important, I added the "old" airblast to the Neon Annihilator, which brings me to the third point, niche weapons! The almost-never-used-seriously weapons are given whole new uses, and I'm just gonna say right now that some of them are total crapshots.

Here are the changes that are pretty sensible:

• Homewrecker is now a faux Quick-Fix one-shots anything short of level 3 buildings.
  
• The Third Degree builds a healing Medic's uber.
  
• SVF crits against Pyros, Targe Demoknights, and Spy-cicle Spies.
  
• NA "airblasts" on hit.

Here are the ones that... look, I was running on empty:

• Scorch Shot afterburn debuffs attack (*cries into vodka in exasperation*).
  
• Manmelter fires really fast (mid offense, direct counter to SS).
  
• Backscratcher applies bleed (made more sense before Axt nerf).
  
• Phlogistinator taunt isn't indestructible (couldn't make it not cap during it).

It seemed like the complaints on the pro-Pyro and anti-Pyro sides weren't in conflict at all, and I can only hope this mod is proof of that. Once SourceMod is up and running again, I'll be going to TF2Center and testing all of this in lobbies. In the meantime, feel free to shoot your own ideas at me on how to proceed with development. Or we can fool around saying Pyro is the devil and stuff because frankly all our hands are tied for the time being anyway. Either's cool.

For all the technical mumbo jumbo, an official page for the mod is here: CLICK ME PLS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvyUhhRu3fo

It's kinda slow, but it (awkwardly) gets the point across. ^^;

I've done as much as I can with the tools available to me. It's a little jittery-looking on account of charged airblasting not being fully hashed out on Valve's part, but it gets the job done. Player momentum in maintained. Scouts get a slight buff against Pyro, since their speed counteracts the modified airblast when it's at twitch-level.

This should make combat considerably more dynamic and engaging for everyone.

It's up!

Game Server: madamlaunch.game.nfoservers.com
Official Information and Downloads

There's a link to my server on my site, found in the first post. I don't know all the rules here, so I played it safe in assuming that directly linking to a server was prohibited, as it is on SPUF.

If it's OK, shit. I just worked out the kinks to the new airblast, so I'll post links f' days, ya heard~?

Thread seems to have died down a bit. Guess I'll have to make a video or something?

Since I don't know how well this is even going to work in the end, I might as well share my current experiment so far.

There's an unused item attribute that turns the airblast into a charged tool, like Demoman's stickybombs. (There's no meter.) You can't attack while charging. This currently only applies to stock.

I took the mechanic and halved all forces applied, and ended up with a two-leveled airblast:

1. A twitch-blast, that reflects projectiles but nudges players
   
2. A charge-blast that works like the standard airblast

The basic mechanics function, but there are some problems:

• Despite my efforts, running is stalled out in most cases.
  
• Lag between the server and the client (and lack of official attention, I bet) causes it to feel "wonky".

I'm going to keep tweaking this rework, if it seems worthwhile. My current theory is that simple traction with the ground is to blame for its stalling, so I have to increase the vertical force just enough to reach "escape velocity". If you're running directly away (or jumping more-or-less away) from the Pyro, you'll be boosted: in every other scenario, the results are... sub-optimal.

This mechanic allows for projectile-defense, though the input-delay makes it a bit trickier; rewards ambush blasts, though makes juggling nearly impossible; and stalls ubers, though likely just the one time you're able to prepare for it. Assuming everything flowed on a technological level, the victim player would maintain their momentum to a very considerable degree, giving them the ability to respond to the encroaching Pyro in a few ways.

(Also, hopefully, the final result will allow for fully-charged blasts off Upward that would be as impractical as they are hilarious, and we would all love them: I'm not holding out for any part of that, though.)

Hopefully, this addresses the core complaints people have with the airblast. Whether I've produced work to your liking or missed the point by a country mile, please let me know.

If you want, I can put the mod on my server for you to try out with friends; but it's not done, and I'm about to go to bed, so speak up quick.